One of the first notable acts of the new European Commission presided over by José Manuel Barroso was - on March 2 - to shatter the moratorium on authorization of genetically modified organisms (GMO) that had been established in Europe.

How did this moratorium, initiated in 1998, arise? From the fact that the governments of the member states did not agree to give GMOs a green light. Why didn't they agree? Because, as elected governments, they heard and understood the hostility and the distrust with which the majority of European citizens regard that technology.

Mr. Barroso - and the "elites" - deem the citizens wrong. So the commission chose to authorize the cultivation of a transgenic potato. The decision was taken without a meeting of the commissioners. The issue is no longer managed by the environment commissioner, but by the commissioner charged with "health and consumer protRead More

Hunger, still and always. And at levels never touched before: Under the impact of the economic crisis, the threshold of a billion people suffering from malnutrition was crossed in 2009. A situation to which the Global Summit on Food Security, taking place in Rome from Monday November 16 to Wednesday November 18 under the aegis of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will - once again - attempt to bring elements of a response.Read More

In his autobiography, Gandhi relates what he calls a "tragedy." When he was a teenager, his best friend wanted to accustom him to eating meat. Gandhi's family belonged to the Vaishnava Hindu tradition in which vegetarianism is the rule. How to violate a custom all the more accepted in that Gandhi's parents - to whom he was utterly devoted - never imagined moving away from it for a second? "We're a weak people because we don't eat meat," his friend told him. "The English are able to dominate us because they're meat-eaters." Gandhi, who at that time felt puny and was already animated, even though he was not yet conscious of it, by a fierce desire for his country's independence, consequently forced himself to eat meat for a while. He was to liberate himself rather easily from that dependency, so essential was the question of diet - to which he was to give a spiritual dimension far surpassing the health issue - to become for him.Read More

And what if India were a model of energy efficiency? Received wisdom has it that developing countries waste their energy in the absence of adequate technologies, while developed countries supposedly use energy more efficiently. A study by the Indian firm Prayas, presented during the conference of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (FIJE) in Delhi on October 28, shows that's not the case at all.

Capitalist ideology - according to which the market can resolve all problems
- has, in these last few days, reached the apex of the absurd. We have learned,
thanks to Green Euro-deputy Claude Turmes, that European Commission President
José Manuel Barroso has been blocking a proposed energy-efficiency action
plan. This text is supposed to compel member states to reduce their energy consumption
by 20 percent and to propose specific measures to attain that objective. Reducing
energy consumption is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Featured Author

Thomas Cowan, MD, has studied and written about many subjects in medicine including nutrition, homeopathy, anthroposophical medicine, and herbal medicine. He is the principal author of The Fourfold Path to Healing and co-author (with Sall......